


Where do we go from here?

by bluehairedgoblin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awesome Jody Mills, Cas comes back human after 15x18, Cas is dead in this, Jack Kline is a Winchester, Night Before The Wedding, Other, Toddler!Jack, we just appreciate her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 23:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29462184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehairedgoblin/pseuds/bluehairedgoblin
Summary: Cas is dead. Dean is left reeling with the consequences of raising Jack on his own. Sam is the emotional support bastard.What happens when Dean meets someone new? Will Cas come back?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester/Original Male Character(s), Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Where do we go from here?

_They were happy. They really were. Who’d have thought it would take a simple car crash to turn Dean’s world upside down._

_Sitting in an uncomfortable hospital chair for days wasn’t what he’d imagined himself doing either. He thought he’d at least be strong enough to care for Jack. He wasn’t._

_Jody took him in, while Dean worried over his husband. Looking at him lying in that hospital bed felt wrong. Even so, when they declared him brain dead a few days later he would have taken another four weeks of disgusting hospital food any day over having to hear them express their condolences._

_When Jody showed up with Jack for their daily visit, she found him sitting in a chair, lifelessly staring into nothing._

Dean met him in a support group for people with PTSD. It sounds ridiculous. Like, imagine Dean “shrinks are for losers” Winchester in a support group for anything. Sounds fake, doesn’t it? Well, in this case it was his own idea to seek help. He needed to get better to be able to care properly for his son. So, he scrambled from meetings to work and then home to his son.

Months and months later he found himself on his balcony. Like every day he looked into the night sky and started talking.

“Cas, you won’t believe it. I met someone. He’s- He’s great,” Dean says. He should be excited, really. He should be, but he isn’t. The guilt is eating him alive.

_“Do you,” the angel paused, searching for the right words, “want to go out with me?”_

_Dean broke out the biggest grin possible, his eyes lighting in like they haven’t in weeks. “Yeah, Cas.” He laughed. “I’d like that.”_

_The smile that graced Cas’s face was breath-taking. Dean couldn’t have described it any differently._

“Hey, guess what, Cas? Martyn asked me out. I wasn’t sure if I should say yes.” He sighs, “I know, I know it’s been two years. So, I talked to Sammy. He said I should follow my heart. Martyn’s a really nice guy, you know.”

Again, no one answers.

“But you’re always on my mind, Castiel. Please, just give me a sign. Anything. Tell me you’re still out there.”

Jack is running around in diapers the next time Sam comes over.

“Oh, thank god, Sammy. I don’t know what to do,” Dean says. He has dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks are hollow. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. The apartment is a mess, and it doesn’t seem like he’s eaten a lot these past few days. But at least Jack finally stopped running to cling to his uncle’s leg.

“Uncle Sam!”

“Dean! What the hell is going on? You’re not answering your phone, it looks like a bomb exploded what is going on?” Sam is worried.

Dean flails helplessly with his arms. “Martyn met Jack. And I don’t know what he thinks of him. I don’t know what to do. One minute he loves him, the next he is super closed off. And I know my son, Sammy. This isn’t one of his moods.”

He trails off, being reminded of the fact that Jack very much understands he is in distress, willing himself to calm down.

Sam eyes the toddler still clinging to him and signals to the car keys in his hand. “How about,” he plucks Jack from his leg and hoists him up on his shoulders. “Jacky spends a night at Grandma Jody’s house, huh? Alex has been talking about how she misses you, you tiny chicken.”

“Yay! Auntie Alex!” He’s babbling now, clapping his hands excitedly.

“Remind me to pick up here later. Now go, shoo. Get this little dinosaur some pj’s for the night.”

Dean sends him a grateful look, moving down the hallway to pack an overnight bag for Jack.

It’s almost 8pm by the time they leave Jody’s place. Dean sags against the driver’s seat, heaving a sigh.

“I’m scared, Sammy. Really scared. What if he likes Martyn? What if it doesn’t work between us and Jack loses another person in his life? And what if he doesn’t like him? I wouldn’t be able to keep seeing him, Jack is my number one priority.”

Sam sighs. “Dean, you realize you don’t have to have all the answers ready now, do you? It’s okay to be overwhelmed. Martyn is your first relationship after Cas. It’s fine if you wanna take things slower, maybe take a step backwards.”

He paused,” Do you like him?”

“I do. I really do.” The terrified look still hasn’t left his eyes.

“Well, is he worth going through all the drama?”

And that’s the big question, isn’t it?

This evening, when Sam is passed out on the couch, he steps out onto the balcony.

“Hiya, Cas.”

It’s quiet. Of course, it is. It’s not like he can just poof in to greet him anymore. He misses the gravelly “Hello Dean”s, he misses the way he spoke the words so carefully yet with so much adoration in them.

“You know, it’s not easy doing shit without you here. Jack isn’t doing so great. He met Martyn but something is bothering the boy. I don’t know what to do. I wish you were here. I wasn’t supposed to do this whole parenting thing alone.”

It takes a few months but eventually Dean invites Martyn to his apartment. He only notices then, how many pictures with Cas he has hanging all over the place.

Martyn, to his credit, either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

Dean doesn’t know but the next time he sees Sam, he asks about the cute guy in the pictures with him and Dean.

Sam just smiles and says “Oh that? That’s Cas. He was family.” And leaves it at that. And Martyn does too. It’s good enough for him, he hears the past tense and knows it’s someone they lost along the way and accepts it. 

_It was a small ceremony. Only Jody, Claire and Sam were there to celebrate their “wedding”. They couldn’t legally get married since Castiel didn’t technically exist and marrying Jimmy Novak felt wrong._

_They had Jody officiate the wedding, Claire as Cas’s best man and obviously Sam as Dean’s._

_It had been simple, yet everything they ever imagined it would be. Dean hadn’t thought when he asked Cas to marry him to actually get a yes, despite their years of pining for each other._

“Hey, Martyn, we need to talk.” Dean’s wringing his hands, focusing on the coolness of his ring to concentrate.

“Oh fuck,” the man in question visibly deflates, his leg bouncing. “Okay, hit me. What did I do? Did I do something? Just tell me.”

Dean suddenly realizes how dooming he sounded and winces. “Sorry, that came out wrong. No, you didn’t do anything. It’s just me. I need to tell you about something. Well, someone.”

Martyn sits down on the couch next to Dean, still looking worried.

“You remember the man in the pictures? The one with Jack and Sam and me? That’s Cas. My   
Ex-Husband.”

Dean waits. Holds his breath and waits for Martyn to freak out.

“Okay.” He eventually says, slowly. “Okay, that’s not what I expected.”

Dean freezes and Martyn immediately hurries to continue, “But that’s fine. I knew you weren’t always single before you met me. It’s okay.”

It’s enough to help Dean relax a little. Good enough to ground him enough to tell him everything. All the pain and all the good things he went through with Cas. He leaves out the bit with his father and the years it took him to accept himself. He decides then that that’s another conversation for later.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until the man looks at him a bit helplessly. He decides to stop his own rambling.

“And I get it. If you don’t want to be with me, it’s fine. I have a lot of baggage, I know. But while I do love him, still with every fibre of my being, you are so important to me, too. I fell in love with you for a million reasons I can’t even remember. But I need to know. I need to know if you can deal with not being the only one I ever loved.”

Martyn lunges forward, grasping onto Dean’s shirt. “God, don’t you ever think I would leave you because you had a life before you met me. Why on earth would I hold that against you? It sucks that you went through all that. But that’s not a reason for me to stop loving you.”

The next time he talks to Cas he’s standing on a motel balcony.

“Cas, I think I’ve met the one I’m gonna marry. I just wish I knew what you think about me moving on. Is it killing you as much as it used to hurt me? Are you glad that I’m getting better?”

“I can’t keep sitting around, waiting for you to come back. I’m finally happy again.”

He doesn’t notice Sam hovering near the door, the small smile, the warm feeling that’s very close to satisfaction in his brother’s chest after a long time.

_“I need you to know, that I love you. I will never stop loving you. Please don’t leave me, Cas. We need you. I need you.”_

_He’s kneeling in front of the hospital bed when Jody comes in. Her instinct is to freeze, to run but then she sees how terrified Dean looks and she just wants to make sure that Dean is okay._

_That’s when she hears the steady beeping from the machines Cas is hooked up to. She’s not too late, she thinks, Castiel is okay._

_“I can’t do this without him, Jodes. What am I gonna tell Jack? ‘Sorry, buddy, but your dad isn’t coming home. He’s in heaven now?’ God, I hope he isn’t trapped with those bastards up there.”_

_She could physically feel her chest hurt at the sight of him crouched, begging on his knees in front of her._

_Dean having his hands wrapped around his soulmate’s wrist tightly, eyes bloodshot and looking_ wrecked _. And she can see herself in him. That was her, ten years ago when Sean died. And her heart aches for him._

_She knows about most of the stuff he’s been through, knows about the abuse he’s suffered in his life. And all she could do was crouch next to him and tuck him into her chest and hold him._

_“It hurts so bad, mom.”_

_She swears that’s the moment she feels something fall apart in her chest._

It’s the evening before the wedding. Everyone Dean had a chance of inviting is there and he knows tomorrow is going to be great.

Charlie, Jody, Claire; they’re all there. Jack, Eileen and Sam are obviously invited as well.

Claire was uncomfortable at first, not really wanting to be part of a wedding that involves Dean getting married to someone else but after a more uncomfortable feelings-involved conversation with Dean, she decided to move past her own comfort for his sake.

Martyn’s parents and his best friends are there too, the wedding rehearsal having been complete chaos but everything Dean would have wanted.

It’s dark when he moves out onto the balcony that night.

“Look, Cas, I prayed to you, every night. And now, I’m about to marry the fairy-tale kind of perfect guy. You would’ve loved him, Cassie. He treats me right, he’s patient with Jack. But-”

He inhales, shivering despite the five layers, “God, I miss you. I wished for you to show up, every night. You didn’t come. Why didn’t you come?”

Tears are running down his face now. “I love him, I really do. He’s perfect. So please, I need you to give me a sign. Anything to prove you’re alive. Otherwise, I’m moving on.”

He waits. He waits five minutes. They turn into twenty. Twenty minutes turn into an hour of Dean just staring at the sunset. Nothing happens. So, he lets him go.

It’s bittersweet but he’s happy. 

His life is finally everything he ever wished for it to be. He quit hunting, got a family and when he thinks of Cas he doesn’t think of pain but instead it’s something good to remember.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time ever letting people read whatever shit I write so please be gentle.   
> A huge thank you to my friend for supporting me through the writing and posting process, I probably wouldn't have written a single sentences without them.


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